Population insights
The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct. To say, as many do, that the difficulties of nations are not due to people but to poor ideology or land-use management is sophistic. -- E.O. Wilson
These links provide important, clear thinking about population.
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The population taboo
How population became a taboo topic and the impact that has had.-
Major report from the UK, with input from scores of experts, concludes the loss of attention to population has been a major setback. Includes good, readable discussion of how attention turned away from population following the 1994 Cairo Conference.
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Detailed examination with a focus on the US, but with observations applicable worldwide.
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Rather than a history, this typically clear and insightful piece from Al Bartlett is a dissection of how population denialists go about avoiding the topic and diverting our attention away from it.
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Population solutions
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The is the method used by the Population Media Center. It can influence such things as desired fetility and use of family planning services. It's results have been tested and documented in multiple studies.
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Illuminating talk from Martha M. Campbell of the School of Public Health, U.C. Berkeley. Covers not only reasons for the silence but key findings on what works in addressing population. Emphasis here on access to family planning.
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Jack Alpert of the Stanford Knowledge Integration Laboratory explores the need for and options for implementing universal "none or one child per family" behaviors.
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The Sixth Extinction
The current "Sixth Mass Extinction" is now widely acknowledged by the scientific community. Failure to stop this catastrophe will be devstating. Experts point to its obvious link to human population growth - a link rarely mentioned in the media.-
Jeffrey McKee, professor of anthropology, Ohio State University, on the direct link between the size and growth of the human population and the Sixth Extinction. See his book on the subject on the "books" page.
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Excellent short film from the Species Alliance.
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Good, clear, and uncompromising from the Rewilding Institute. Don't overlook the links as you scroll down.
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Ehrlich speaks clearly on the problem in this interview from Science Friday on the US's National Public Radio. Note his well justified criticism of scientists for their failure to speak out more than they have.
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Good overview of the issue from Niles Eldredge.
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It's not only the lost of species that matters, but the drop in numbers within species. This lowers genetic diversity and has other serious effects. This BBC article offers some sobering statistics.
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More sobering data, these from Guardian science correspondent Ian Sample.
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Population ecology
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Russ Hopfenberg's site, providing information on the oddly ignored observation that human population growth is ultimately the direct result of increases in the global food supply.
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Debunking population myths
Efforts to dismiss the importance of population have evolved into a myth-filled lore. A little logic undoes it.-
By Brishen Hoff. A Canadian perspective, but applicable elsewhere. Emphasis on immigration, a hot-button topic but, alas, one with legitimate environmental implications under today's crisis conditions.
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Alex Birch exposes common categories and subcategories of flawed argument. I disagree with a lot of the politics on this site, but its members do seem to take a logical approach to environmental issues.
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Al Bartlett always brings clarity of thought to the population discussion. Here he dissects population myths with an emphasis on urban growth.
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A pair of essays I wrote for my prior site.
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Bill Ryerson of the Population Media Center on an array of myths. Interesting section on proposed solutions highlights the need for PMC's approach.
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Jim Motavalli of E/The Environment Magazine takes on a number of population myths, truths, and half-truths.
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Other population links
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By J. Kenneth Smail, professor emeritus of anthropology, Kenyon College. This article focuses on the scale of populaton decline we may now need and the time urgency involved, having neglected the issue for so long.
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Al Bartlett's site, containing his articles, talks, interviews, etc. Al's work covers many issues other than population, but for now I'll put the link here as everyone needs to know his work on population.
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Other video and audio versions of Al Bartlett's famous talk. (You can also find it on Al's site and via google video.)
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A post in which I gathered together the official statements on population, recent and past, from an assortment of scientific groups (and a group of world leaders).
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Partnership of the Bixby Program, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley and Scripps Institute of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Provided in response to the unwarranted silence on population.
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The work of research team, Thomas Dietz, Eugene A. Rosa , and Richard York. Top notch research on population impacts.
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